


happiness and disaster

by dustofwarfare



Category: Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-04
Updated: 2014-12-04
Packaged: 2018-02-28 02:42:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,734
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2715935
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dustofwarfare/pseuds/dustofwarfare
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You can't have one without the other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	happiness and disaster

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Raskol](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Raskol/gifts).



> Because apparently I like to make people sad on their birthdays, or something. 
> 
> but okay she asked for _Angeal/Genesis, canon-verse_ , what was I supposed to do??
> 
> For my darling Raskol, on her birthday. Because she's pretty great, and one time actually watched all of _Dirge of Cerberus_ on chat with me, which is kind of amazing if you think about it. And I shall repay her with woe and tears, 'cause that's how I roll :| 
> 
> (at least i didn't give it a punny name, right?) 
> 
> title is from the Stabilo song of the same name.

**happiness and disaster**

“I don’t know why you insist on doing that,” Angeal says, sighing, watching as Sephiroth stalks like an angry young wolf out of the SOLDIER common room, to the accompaniment of Genesis’s mocking laughter. “One day, he’s going to turn around and tear your throat out.” 

Genesis, sprawled with all his usual grace on one of the couches, flashes Angeal an unrepentant grin and winks. “Maybe I want him to _try_.” 

Angeal sighs in exasperation. “I liked it better when he was still your hero,” he mutters darkly, remembering the young man in Banora who would watch reports about Sephiroth in wide-eyed wonder. 

“Who says he’s not?” Genesis asks, flipping a page in his book. “Maybe I’m honing my poor social skills to follow in his footsteps.” 

Angeal is not tricked into thinking Gen is really into whatever book he’s pretending to read. He’s seen Genesis when he gets absorbed in a novel, and it’s impossible to get a _yes_ or _no_ answer out of his friend, much less an overly-dramatic page turn. “Then why do you keep wanting to antagonize him?” 

Genesis just shrugs, his eyes straying occasionally to the door, as if he keeps expecting -- or hoping -- it will open. “He’s the best. _I_ want to be the best.That means I have to knock him down a peg or two.” There’s a hunger on Genesis’s face that makes Angeal uneasy. 

He liked it better when they were first here, when Genesis’s usual outspokenness and arrogance were tempered by necessity. Genesis _is_ a good soldier, he’s risen quite quickly in the ranks -- and not just because of his physical strength or grace, either. Angeal knows better than anyone how charming Genesis is when he wants something, how ruthlessly he will pursue a goal. 

And oh, Genesis wants this -- _badly_. Of all the plans they came up with as children, of all the ridiculous ideas of how they might spend their future….this is the one that’s always mattered the most. 

* * * 

On Angeal’s tenth birthday, Genesis hands Angeal a toy sword and drags him out to the orchards to play. It’s growing colder, the trees have borne their fruit and are beginning to shed their leaves in preparation for winter. 

“Who’re we gonna be today?” Angeal asks, gripping his sword, facing off against his smaller friend. Genesis is not as big as he is, but Angeal envies the way Genesis moves, graceful like a dancer. He feels like a lumbering ox most of the time, always worried he’s going to trip and break things in Genesis’s house. He waves the sword in what he hopes is a menacing fashion, squinting one eye shut. “M’I gonna be the pirate, again?” 

Genesis gives him the haughtiest look possible from one ten-year-old to another. “We’re too old for that,” Genesis informs him, and Angeal wisely doesn’t ask if that’s because the last time they played _pirate versus navy captain_ (last week), the navy captain ended up tied to an apple tree while the pirate ate all of his candy. 

“Oh?” Angeal tests the sword in his hand. “What’s a more grown-up thing to play, then?” He can’t imagine what that is. His mother deals with grown-up stuff sometimes, phone calls that make her sad and look at him with worried eyes, all half-finished sentences and hesitant hair-ruffles. “That sounds boring. I wanna be the pirate. I’ll let you win this time,” he offers, and receives a frightful scowl in return. 

“Pirates aren’t real, Angeal,” Genesis says, hands on his hips. “Or if they are, no one cares because they don’t do anything exciting. They just take stuff from people who work hard for a living to give to lazy poor people. That’s what my father says, anyway.” 

“Pirates give money to poor people? There are poor people who live on ships?” Angeal considers this. “I wouldn’t mind living on a ship.” 

“Don’t be stupid, Angeal, you’re not poor,” Genesis admonishes him, with all of the wisdom gleaned from half-listening to his father’s rants at dinner. “Your mother isn’t lazy, and my father says all poor people are lazy, so. Anyway, that’s not the point. We have to practice for when we grow up.” 

“Practice what?” Angeal asks, still patient. You just can’t interrupt Genesis or pretend to know what he’s going to say, because he doesn’t like that. Angeal has attempted to explain this to every teacher they’ve ever had, to no avail. 

It never works, though. Angeal thinks maybe it’s a grown-up thing, when you keep trying to do something impossible because you think you _should_ be able to do it. 

“We’re going to grow up and be famous soldiers,” Genesis informs him. “And we have to be the best, you and me, so we have to start practicing now.” 

“Okay.” In the time they’ve been best friends, Genesis has had several future careers planned out for the two of them. One year, they were going to be actors (or Genesis would be the actor and Angeal his bodyguard, because, if the evidence from the midwinter play at school was to be considered, Angeal was not actor material), and the next, popular musicians. That summer involved a lot of singing along to current pop songs, until that plan was abandoned in favor of famous art thieves. 

Angeal liked that one, but sadly, he was too big to slip in and out of windows and things. Being a soldier sounds all right, but he isn’t sure how anyone becomes the _best_ at it; aren’t soldiers supposed to all fight together, like a team? 

Genesis’s childhood career aspirations seem mostly to center around being notorious. Convinced this is just another in a long line of possibilities, Angeal doesn’t think much about it. When they’re sweaty and dirty from playing swords, Genesis says, “Promise me you’ll be a soldier with me, Angeal,” and so, Angeal promises -- just like he’d promised to be a bodyguard, and a singer, a pirate and an art thief. 

“Sure, I promise, Gen,” Angeal says, with the sincerity that is so much a part of him -- the sincerity and that unshakable knowledge that somehow, in some way, his future will always be entwined with that of Genesis Rhapsodos. 

That doesn’t stop him from rolling over in his bunk, several years later after their first day at boot camp, and saying quietly, “You couldn’t have just stuck with those singing lessons, Gen, could you? Or auditioned for that troupe of traveling actors, the one that used to put on plays in the summer, like you threatened your parents you were going to?” 

“All the world’s a stage, my dear Angeal,” Genesis answers, breezily, grinning that same sly grin at him. “This is just a different kind of play.” 

At least Angeal is better at this than acting. 

* * *  
Sephiroth is not anything like Angeal thought he’d be; he’s awkward around people, he hides behind his hair, and he talks so quietly it’s sometimes hard to hear what he’s saying. If he were a kid back in Banora….

It’s actually hard for Angeal to think about that, because it’s hard to imagine Sephiroth as a kid, anywhere. It’s actually hard to imagine Sephiroth as a kid at _all_. 

But Angeal expected Sephiroth to be standoffish and self-important, and he isn’t, not at all. He’s just shy and a little weird, which Angeal doesn’t mind, but somehow _Genesis_ does. 

“He’s not supposed to be like that, honestly, Angeal, who can’t carry on a conversation? This is _Midgar_ , and I’ve had more thrilling conversations with the apples in my parents’ orchard than with Sephiroth.” 

Genesis is never aware of how he often intimidates people when they try and talk to him; he tends to talk over them if he gets excited by the subject, he makes disparaging noises if he disagrees, and he’s been known to walk off, mid-sentence, without even finishing the conversation if he thinks whomever he’s talking to is a moron. 

Angeal, on the other hand, is less inclined to talk and more to listen -- a good thing, probably, considering who his best friend is. But it’s not necessarily Genesis’s fault; even as a child, Angeal never was one to chatter just to hear himself talk. Though they both grew up only children, it was Genesis who lived in a house where the silence was _oppressive_ instead of comfortable, and he’s never much liked being alone. 

Angeal, on the other hand, sometimes _dreams_ of having a whole day to himself. There are so many people in Midgar, in the Tower, everywhere; it’s overwhelming, and makes him think fondly of the vast apple orchards back home, or his cozy little bedroom in his mother’s house. 

Genesis doesn’t seem to like the people in Midgar as much as he likes the _noise_. 

Sephiroth is a quieter sort, like Angeal, and one would think Genesis would recognize the type seeing as how he’d been best friends with Angeal for most of his entire life. And Genesis is always the first to defend Angeal if someone accuses him of being nothing but brainless muscle (though he sometimes says things like, _he’s not an idiot, but he could beat you up with one eye closed and me on his back, so fuck off_ , which doesn’t exactly help), but somehow he seems to take Sephiroth’s awkwardness as a personal affront. 

He doesn’t notice how Sephiroth watches him with those strange eyes of his, quietly but with interest, or that Sephiroth doesn’t try nearly as hard to talk to anyone _else_. 

Angeal notices, though. He notices and wonders if Genesis ever will, and what might happen if he does. 

* * *  
Angeal and Genesis don’t attend high school together, because Genesis’s parents think it is more appropriate for their status as members of the _landed gentry_ to have their son homeschooled. 

Genesis hates it, but he hates most everything about Banora at this point in his life. Angeal doesn’t really understand; sometimes he thinks Genesis isn’t very grateful, because he’s rich and can have whatever he wants, and he doesn’t have to deal with school and all the petty dramas of adolescence that are played out every day within its halls. 

Then he remembers how Genesis never knows what to do when Angeal’s mom gives him a hug or ruffles his hair like she does to Angeal, and he thinks maybe Gen really isn’t that lucky after all. 

In school Angeal learns more than just how to do his multiplication tables or geography or chemistry; he learns how to navigate the social climate of his surroundings, how to stand up for kids who have their lunch money stolen, how to ask a girl to dance without sounding _too_ interested in them. 

“I learned how to read a fairly difficult passage in Cetran today,” Genesis tells him one afternoon, staring moodily into the orchards beyond the Rhapsodos’s manicured lawn. The trees are bent and barren, branches reaching like bones towards the slate-grey sky. He sounds neither pleased nor displeased by this, and his hair is obscuring his face too much for Angeal to see his eyes. “My tutor says I could probably pass a college entrance exam in a month or two.” 

Angeal thinks for a moment, wanting to share something he’s done, too, so that Genesis doesn’t look so lonely. “I beat up Mark Moffat because he called Mr. Chatham a bad name.”

“What kind of name?” Genesis asks, turning his face a little to glance at Angeal. 

“A bad one,” Angeal repeats, firmly. 

“Oh, come _on_ , Angeal, you have to tell me,” Genesis huffs, but there’s a dullness to it, an emptiness, like maybe he’s only saying it because he thinks he’s supposed to, and doesn’t really care. 

“I don’t want to have to beat _myself_ up for saying it,” Angeal jokes, though it sounds a little strained, even to him. 

“You do enough of that already,” Genesis says, without looking at him. “Stay for dinner.” 

He does, and they eat by themselves in the kitchen; food someone else cooked, someone who’s already done the dishes and cleaned up their mess, someone who is already long gone. 

* * * 

“He’s very _difficult_ ,” Sephiroth says, eyes half-narrowed, arms crossed over his chest. 

Angeal, who is panting slightly from their kendo match, manages to nod. “Yeah. You get used to it.” 

Sephiroth barely looks winded, the only sign of exertion a slight flush to his pale cheeks, a few damp strands of hair around his face. “Do you?” 

Angeal can see the remnants of a broken shinai lying on the floor, the door to the training room flung wide open as if someone stormed out in a huff. He gives a rueful smile and shakes his head. “Not really, no.” 

Sephiroth smiles, and looks sort of pleased. 

* * *  
“He doesn’t hate you,” Angeal says, for the sixty-third thousandth time, as he spoons some mashed potatoes onto his plate. He is hungry all the time from the combination of mako and constant exercise, and it’s hard to remember when he first came here and thought eating three times a day was too many and wasted too much food. 

“He likes you better, though,” Genesis says, scowling at a Third Class who is committing the unpardonable sin of taking too long at the coffee station. “Come, now, it’s a choice between _regular_ or _decaf_ , that’s hardly a choice, there’s only one option that makes _sense_.” 

“Gen,” Angeal says, sighing, rubbing at the headache between his eyes. He’s probably dehydrated, but it seems like too much effort to go get another water bottle when the coffee is right _there_. Plus, they have to study; SOLDIER is a physically demanding program, sure, but there’s plenty of tests and mental activities that have to be passed as well in order to move up the ranks. 

He looks longingly at a table full of Shinra troopers, who are laughing and eating a normal amount of food. Their eyes don’t glow, and they probably don’t wake up so hungry they think about eating their roommate.

“What?” Genesis says, filling two mugs with black coffee and, after a few moments, throwing a few creamers onto the tray with a look at Angeal that dares him to make a comment. 

Angeal thinks about saying _Sephiroth drinks his coffee black, you know,_ but he doesn’t. Mainly because it isn’t true (Sephiroth drinks tea, not coffee), and also because he’s not in the mood. They’re friends, the three of them, but Genesis is still so competitive with Sephiroth it makes Angeal tired. 

“Drink some water,” Angeal says, instead, and puts his lone bottle of water on Genesis’s tray. He fills an empty mug up with hot water, thinking maybe it will cool off by the time he’s ready to drink it, and follows his friend to their usual table. 

Sephiroth is there, eating his normal disgustingly healthy meal comprised of adequate amounts of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. He has two bottles of water and a mug of green tea, and he’s reading some kind of field manual, half-hiding behind his hair as Genesis and Angeal sit down to join him. 

Across the cafeteria, a table full of Thirds burst into raucous laughter, inspired by the antics of a bright-eyed, dark-haired young man who can’t seem to stay seated, with animated hand gestures that make Angeal smile a little from across the room. 

There’s not a single bottle of water on his tray, either. Just a Black Chocobo energy drink, and some kind of sugary sports beverage that offers _no adequate hydration_ , as Sephiroth would say, and is _an affront to actual beverages made of pure juice_ , as would Genesis. 

The majority of the cafeteria is full of Shinra troopers, with their identical uniforms and regulation helmets, trays full of pizzas and sodas, chatting or reading or checking their PHPs. 

They are the only three Seconds, just like they were the only three Thirds, and the cafeteria is segmented by rank and program. In a few months time, they will be the first to earn the title of SOLDIER First Class; everyone in the cafeteria wants to be where they are. 

“Who are you looking at?” Genesis asks, leaning over and into his space, as per usual. He smells good, like apples, as they are the only indulgences from home that he allows himself. 

“Lots of Thirds, looks like,” Angeal says, sipping his water. It’s still hot, and he burns his tongue. 

“Did you forget your teabag, Angeal?” Sephiroth asks, a little frown between his brows. He’s grown considerably more attractive than when they first arrived, his tall, lanky frame filling out into a nicely muscular physique - but he’s still just as strange, those odd eyes of his as disconcerting as ever. “You must be tired. Maybe you should go and rest after dinner.” 

“Maybe I’ll get some ice cream and a Black Chocobo and take it back to my room,” says Angeal. 

“Your apartment, you mean?” Genesis snorts. “Are you nostalgic for our days in the barracks, Angeal?” Genesis rolls his eyes and takes a sip of his coffee. “I, for one, don’t miss them at all.” 

“Those energy drinks will only dehydrate you,” says Sephiroth. 

The table of Thirds break out into laughter again. Angeal looks past the young man with the dark hair and the loud voice, wondering if somewhere there is a sulky SOLDIER with the soul of a poet and eyes that look like mako pools, scowling down at his coffee. Probably not. “Looks like we have a lot of new Thirds making their way up the ranks.” 

“Most of them won’t make it,” says Sephiroth. “A lot of them will probably get shot.” 

Genesis laughs, but the sound isn’t bright at all. It’s bitter like the coffee Angeal didn’t get, but sort of wishes that he had. 

_At least I’m not hungry anymore,_ Angeal thinks, putting down his fork. Not that he could taste anything, anyway; the hot water has burned his tongue so badly, it’s like all his taste buds have disintegrated. 

As they leave the cafeteria, Angeal notices that the water he gave Genesis is tossed, unopened, into the trash. 

* * *  
Every Sunday night, Angeal makes dinner for him and Gen in the apartment’s tiny kitchen. It’s never anything fancy but it’s always filling, and sometimes he even makes dessert. 

He’s not a very good cook, but he likes it and it’s better than the cafeteria. 

Genesis usually shows up late with a bottle or two of wine. He sits on the counter, drinking the wine from one of Angeal’s three plastic cups (of his _very own_ , thank you), complaining about something (usually Sephiroth). 

Wine mellows him out, and so by dessert they are usually sitting close on the couch and watching a movie. Gen sometimes falls asleep with his head on Angeal’s shoulder, the years of their friendship woven comfortably around them like a warm blanket. 

Gen is never comfortable around Sephiroth, even now. The one time Angeal brought up inviting Seph over for their Sunday dinner, Genesis declared him a _traitor of the worst sort_ and threw his plastic cup across the room, spilling his wine on the carpet. 

If he concentrates, Angeal can still see the stain. 

* * *  
For Midwinter Angeal decides to surprise Genesis and make a pie with some Banora Whites he orders from a guy who knows a guy; it costs him a month of pay, which isn’t a lot but it’s still enough to make a dent in his bank account. 

He makes the pie on a Sunday night, for their usual dinner. The usual time comes and goes, and the pie cools on the table and Genesis never shows up. 

Angeal wraps it in plastic and puts it in the freezer so that it will keep for next week. Gen must be in Wutai, or on a mission; they don’t always get enough notice to let each other know where they’re going, which is probably on purpose. 

But Gen is not in Wutai, and he’s not a mission. He’s in the training room the next morning with Sephiroth, and he doesn’t offer a single explanation as to his whereabouts the night before. 

He doesn’t have to, because Angeal catches the scent of apple shampoo on Sephiroth’s hair, and he knows why Genesis didn’t show up. 

The pie ends up with freezer burn, but Angeal doesn’t throw it away. 

* * *  
“You could invite Seph, if you wanted,” says Genesis, a few weeks later, not looking at Angeal. 

Angeal doesn’t say anything, but when Gen knocks on his door next week, he doesn’t answer. 

* * *  
The night of the Midwinter Dance, Angeal is seventeen and dressed in an uncomfortable suit, walking home from the worst night of his life and heading towards the one place where he knows he can relax. 

“Did you actually _buy_ that suit?” Genesis asks, opening the door. His parents are somewhere, Costa del Sol maybe, like they always are at this time of the year. Genesis used to come up with elaborate schemes about how he could either bring Angeal along in his suitcase, or stay home without his parents knowing. 

This year he told them he wasn’t going, and that was that. 

“No,” Angeal says, blinking, a little drunk and a lot embarrassed. Genesis wouldn’t look silly in this suit. He would look good in it. That’s why Angeal bought it, because it seemed like something Gen would like and Gen only liked things that were cool. 

He tries to tell this to Genesis, who gives him a very strange look and then says, “You big, dumb lummox. Come here,” and pulls Angeal into the house. “Did you at least get laid?” 

Angeal laughs. “What do you think?” 

Genesis smiles at him; a real smile, not that sly one that means he’s done something Angeal probably won’t like, or that his parents won’t like -- most of Genesis’s smiles are _because_ someone won’t like him, so it’s rare when they mean anything else. 

“I think you have too high of an opinion of my fashion sense,” says Gen. “And too low of one of yourself.” 

That’s when Angeal kisses him for the first time, his heart in his throat, half expecting Genesis to punch him (as ineffective as it might be at this point, it’s the urge that matters, the reason why he’d do it) or maybe laugh again, or for his smile to change and turn mean, like Angeal is just one more person he likes to piss off. 

Genesis doesn’t punch him, or laugh, and when Angeal backs away with wide eyes, Genesis touches his fingers to his mouth and then says, in a voice Angeal hasn’t heard before, “You should have just come over here, and you wouldn’t have had to go out in public in that suit.” 

They’re both inexperienced and awkward, and it doesn’t happen often and Gen doesn’t like to talk about it, probably _because_ he’s inexperienced, but it seems right in a way that Angeal thinks means that it’s real. But Banora is not the most accepting of towns, and Angeal still remembers the name they called Mr. Chatham, and now it makes sense, maybe, why he didn’t want to say it in front of Gen. 

* * *  
They are in the middle of nowhere, a Wutain jungle with trees so thick it’s impossible to see the sky, sweating in the middle of a summer storm and waiting in vain for the rain to cool things down. 

It doesn’t, it just makes things _soupy_. 

“I hate this fucking country,” Genesis says, crankily, pushing his hair off his forehead. “I’m going to throw a fucking party when this war is finally over.” 

He is wearing fatigues and a white shirt, and he could, possibly, be a model for a recruitment poster. He _has_ been, actually. They all have. 

Sephiroth’s ad is very glorious, all flowing hair and black leather and that absurd sword of his. Angeal’s is very _noble_ , because of his _strong profile_ , which is a nice way of saying he has a big nose. And no matter what pose they put him in, what combination of uniform they made him wear, Genesis’s looked like it belonged in a men’s magazine. 

The kind they sell in the back of gas stations, or in Wall Market. 

“It’s almost the end of summer,” Angeal says, nonsensically. 

“Oh, wonderful. Then we can have winter, and perhaps it shall snow a million feet and I can _freeze_.” 

Angeal looks at him, his best friend who is a mass of contradictions; one of the most dangerous soldiers in the world, who carries a book of poetry next to his heart and smells like apples, even when there’s blood on his hands, blood of people he’s never met, people he’s killing for reasons he doesn’t seem to care about at all. 

Genesis doesn’t seem to want to be at war as much as he wants to survive it, to have been good at it while he was there. Angeal has never thought too much about the reasons they’re here in the first place, but now that he has mako running next to the blood in his veins he wonders if he should think more about it, if he’s fighting on the wrong side, facing the wrong enemy. 

“You’re angsting, aren’t you.” 

Angeal looks over at Genesis, whose eyes have always been the blue of the waters around Banora, but with the mako they just look cold, like that warm sea covered in ice. “You’re sleeping with Sephiroth.” 

Genesis blinks, then falls back on his sleeping bag (completely unnecessary, in the heat) and says, “It doesn’t mean anything. It was either that or I was going to try and kill him.” 

Angeal just nods, wishing he hadn’t said anything. 

“Sometimes I wish you weren’t here,” Genesis says, a few moments later, breaking the silence that has settled thick like the air between them. 

“Well, Gen, right now _I_ wish I wasn’t here,” Angeal says, darkly amused, because it sounds like Genesis is going to be serious and now Angeal wishes they could just go to sleep. 

“I wish you weren’t like you are, sometimes,” Genesis continues, as if Angeal hasn’t spoken. 

“Accommodating?” Angeal says, deadpan, but Genesis is either not getting his humor or not in the mood to appreciate it. Maybe both. 

“Loyal,” says Genesis, not looking at him. “Perfect. I wish you had someone better than me to be your friend, because I’m not worth this, and I don’t know why you’ve never figured it out.” 

Angeal sits there in stunned silence, and Genesis puts one arm behind his head, takes his ever-present copy of _Loveless_ and flips it open, and ignores him. 

The storm breaks later that night, and for the first time since they were on their way to Midgar, dreaming about glory without knowing what it would take to find it, Angeal presses Genesis down beneath him and kisses him, and for the moment, it’s all worth it. 

* * *  
“It doesn’t mean anything,” Sephiroth tells him, out of nowhere. “Genesis. It was either that, or kill him.” 

Angeal sighs. Loudly. And then he grins, and starts to laugh. “It doesn’t help,” he says, and something tight loosens up in his chest. “Trust me. It won’t make him any less difficult.”

Sephiroth smiles at him, a little wickedly. “It does for a little while,” he says, slyly, and pulls his hair back into a ponytail. “An hour, at least.” 

“An hour?” Angeal raises both his eyebrows. “An hour. I should have known. You’re such an overachiever, Seph.” 

Sephiroth laughs. It’s not a sound Angeal hears very often, but it’s a nice laugh, and it doesn’t sound as rusty as it used to. 

They’ve been good for him, Angeal realizes, him and Gen. 

“Come over on Sunday for dinner,” Angeal tells him, and pats Sephiroth on the shoulder. “I’ll make a pie.” 

“I’ll bring some vegetables,” Sephiroth says, and Angeal wonders if he’s serious, and decides not to ask. 

* * *  
They’re a day or two from Midgar when Genesis unpacks the bottle of whiskey from his bedroll, housed in a ridiculous crystal decanter that clearly came from his parents’ house. 

Things have been going all right so far. They’ve been camping and only had to mend the tent twice, and Genesis, as it turns out, has never actually _been_ camping so they could definitely have run into a lot more problems. 

Angeal is covered with monster blood, and Genesis has something in his hair, and his bedroll is covered in brambles from a cactuar or some other prickly plant, but they sit down amidst their meager possessions and pass the crystal bottle back and forth. 

“I can’t believe you didn’t drop this,” Angeal says, the warm liquor settling in his stomach in lieu of the food they didn’t really plan out so well, and therefore ran out of about a day ago. 

“Oh, Angeal, have you _been_ on this little adventure? I’ve dropped it six, seven thousand times.” Genesis nods, very seriously. “That’s why I brought so many clothes.” 

“Huh?” Angeal’s mental faculties are a little fuzzy, what with the monster fight and the no dinner and the liquor. 

“To wrap the bottle up in,” he says, sounding triumphant. “See? You should be glad you’re traveling with someone as clever as I am.” 

“We don’t have any food,” Angeal reminds him. 

Genesis’s pleased smile turns into a scowl. “There’s no need to dwell on the negative, Hewley.” 

Angeal laughs, which sounds a bit too much like a giggle. “You’re ridiculous, Gen. Why am I even here? I could be back home, in my bed, and not wearing something’s guts.” 

“You’re a lucky man, what can I say?” 

“You don’t even like camping. Are you going to like the _army_? It’s like camping, but with running. And getting up early.” Angeal groans. “I don’t think _I’m_ going to like the army,” he says, flinging an arm over his eyes. “This is good. This whiskey.” He drops his arm and turns his head, smiling over at Genesis. “M’glad it didn’t break. That expensive glass thing.” 

“Me, too,” Genesis says, and passes it back.

Angeal doesn’t measure the distance correctly, and the decanter falls on the ground, breaking against a few rocks that are jutting out of the earth. 

Angeal and Genesis look at each other and start to laugh. 

“They probably have better whiskey in Midgar, anyway,” says Genesis, yawning. “Sorry I didn’t bring any food.” 

“S’okay.” 

Later, when the fire is dying and there are sounds of wild creatures scuffling around, hopefully not too close because Angeal is tired and still a little drunk, Genesis says, “I can’t believe we really did it.” 

“Shhh, we’re not there yet. Something could still maul us.” 

“We really have to work on your attitude, Hewley,” Genesis says, punching him in the shoulder. He’s still not very good at punching. Though compared to Angeal, most people aren’t. 

“You thought I’d let you do this alone?” Angeal snorts. “If something is going to maul you, it’s gonna maul me, too.” 

“The true definition of friendship.” Genesis moves closer, a rustle of clothes. “I knew you’d come with me. You always do,” he says, yawning louder. “Keep telling you that’s dumb. Look at this. Look where we are, and tell me I’m wrong.” 

Angeal looks down at Genesis, sprawled next to him and looking, somehow, happier and more relaxed than Angeal’s never seen him. Despite the numerous physical aches and intense hunger, and Genesis’s knack at picking a place to sleep with a thousand rocks jabbing in his back, he can’t say Genesis is wrong. “It could be worse,” he says, instead, and follows it up quickly with, “If we could make sure it isn’t, though. That’d be good.”

“I’ll do my best, but no promises.” Genesis smiles up at him, and the fire dies in slow degrees, but neither of them notice. 

 

* * *  
Later, Sephiroth and Angeal meet to discuss Genesis’s defection; it is only the two of them in the conference room, the rest of the offices are quiet and dark. 

“Do you --” Sephiroth shakes his head, mouth tightening, as if he’s angry at himself for speaking. “Do you know where he is?” 

Angeal shakes his head, looking up at the picture of Genesis projected up on the wall. “No,” he says, guilt a sick twist in the pit of his stomach. _But I should._

“He didn’t tell you he was leaving.” Sephiroth says it like he can’t quite believe it’s true. There’s pain there, hurt that has nothing to do with Angeal, rare smiles hidden behind the fall of his hair. 

“No,” says Angeal, again. He digs his fingers into his palm, and thinks about apples and whiskey and the sound of rain on a tent in Wutai, the stars in the sky on the outskirts of Midgar. “He didn’t.” 

“He must have thought you’d talk him out of it, or try to,” Sephiroth says, in that way he has, of trying to make sense of things that he can’t; people, mostly, because he still doesn’t really understand them and can Angeal blame him for that? 

Genesis’s absence is a tangible ache in his chest, a thousand memories of sword fights and pirates and all the things that brought them here, to this Tower in a city full of lights where everything’s finally gone dark. 

“No,” Angeal says. “That’s not why he didn’t tell me.” 

_I knew you’d come with me. You always do._

* * * 

When they finally reach Midgar, both of them are struck by how _large_ the city is; how the buildings reach endlessly into the sky, how the lights at dusk are already so bright it’s impossible to think they didn’t see the glow when they were merely a day out of Banora. 

“ _And legend shall speak of sacrifice at the world’s end_ ,” says Genesis, reverently, whispering it like a prayer. 

Angeal turns to look at him, uncertain of what he’d said and if he’s missed something. “What was that?” 

“Just a poem,” says Genesis, shrugging like it doesn’t matter; but he’s not looking at him, so Angeal knows that it does. “One of those things I read while you were at school, having adventures. Ready?” he asks, and starts to walk. 

“Ready,” says Angeal, and follows.


End file.
